Week 15

    What a whirlwind week here in third grade! We have had so much fun and learned a lot of new interesting facts!

    Our world travel led us to the countries of Australia, Mexico, Canada and Sweden. We will finish with three countries next week and your child will come home with their very own suitcase and passport. :)

Today we had to say thank you and goodbye to Miss Bloom. She has been an amazing student teacher and really got to know your children well. Good luck with your teaching career Miss Bloom!

Our focus in math is multiplication word problems and getting fluent with our facts. We will introduce 5s next week and students will be expected to be practicing these at home via flash cards (Walmart and dollar store have inexpensive ones) or the wrap ups I send home.

Today we were fortunate enough to have a visit from Chewonki. They did a presentation on “Mammals of Maine”. It was very engaging and the students loved it!

Next Wednesday is “ugly sweater day”. I will be out of town Thursday and Friday, but Miss Bloom will be back! Friday is a ½ day and also PJ day! Dismissal is 11:30

           ~ Mrs. Haulk

Week 14

Happy Hanukkah! Our class did such a great job at the concert this week - I loved watching them sing!

  This week in third grade we have been continuing our tour around the world. We made it to the countries of Germany, England, India and Italy. Simon and Elliott taught us how to play dreidel this week too! Next week we will travel to Australia, Sweden, Mexico and Canada.

    Next week we will have our classroom party on Friday. Please find the attached list to see the items we will need. Don’t forget, we’d love to have you join us as well! We will be starting around 12:45-1ish.

New spelling groups started this week. At the beginning of the first and then the end of each trimester I give your child a spelling inventory. This is a way for me to assess where they fall in the spelling continuum. This also helps me place them in the most appropriate group for their current spelling abilities. Practicing these words at home is huge - please make sure to find time for that!

Next Wednesday’s theme day is Grinch - have fun! Have a great weekend!    ~Mrs. Haulk

This week's books...

Newsletter image:

Week 13 (a little late!)

Third grade has started our tour around the world with our unit on traditions celebrated in different countries! This week we first made a suitcase and got handed out our very own passports. The first three countries that we visited were Israel, Netherlands and Greenland. We learned about Hanukkah, about Sinterklaas from the Netherlands and about the traditions celebrated in Greenland. We made our own dutch “wooden shoes” too!

Next week is the Holiday Concert! It is on Wednesday evening at 5:30. Your kids will come to the classroom anytime after 5:15. Please do not come earlier than that. My door will be locked and I won’t be here until 5:15 either! Holiday Concert attire is nice clothing. Fancy if you’d like, not so fancy (but nice) if you’d prefer.

Our holiday party will be on Friday, December 14th. I invite parents to participate from 1:00-2:45 if you’d like! :) We will be making ornaments, doing crafts and having FUN. A sign up sheet will be coming home regarding needs for that day.

We have some fun theme days coming up in December! Please see the calendar below and keep them handy!

I know homework is “optional”, but all activities sent home help to reinforce our units of study in the classroom. Please be encouraging your child to work on a few items each week. We had A LOT of kids earning homework points this week - that’s awesome!

Week 12

Week 12 may have been short, but boy was it fun! I was really hoping for school on Friday to finish up a couple of projects, but Mother Nature had other plans!

Our focus this week was the history of the First Thanksgiving and all the details that surround it. We learned why the pilgrims came to the New World, what happened when they arrived and how the first year of events played out. We learned about the Mayflower, Squanto, Samoset, the Wampanoag Tribe, what the pilgrims learned from the Native Americans and about the life of pilgrim children once they arrived at Plymouth Plantation. With so many kiddos having so many questions we even got into the history of the events that transpired after the First Thanksgiving. Totally no part of our original plan, but I love their inquiring minds! Miss Bloom created a timeline of events and taught them about these important dates in history.

In math we are really working hard at the multiplication unit. Our focus right now is learning our x2 and x3 facts. Please keep practicing at home!

After the kids return from Thanksgiving break we will be finalizing their personal narratives, which was the focus of Trimester 1 writing. We will invite you in for a writing celebration when we are ready to share!

Please mark your calendars!!! December 5th is the Winter Concert and December 14th is our ornament making afternoon. This will be our holiday party as I will be out of town the two days before December break. We’d love to have parents join us on the 14th, if you’d like! This will also be the kids last official student teaching day with Miss Bloom. We will honor her as well. Elisa and/or I will be in touch with details and items that we will need. Thank you!

Our picture book a day books were...

A view of our month!...

Week 11

It’s hard to believe that we are 11 weeks in and nearing the end of the first trimester!

If you are in town the week of Thanksgiving, please call Mrs. White to schedule a parent/teacher conference with me. I would love to chat with you about your child’s progress and take time to connect! If you are away or there are no time slots that work, email me and we will set up another time. I’d love to be able to meet with ALL of you! :)

This week our theme was learning about Veterans Day and the election. We had lots of really good discussions!

In math we are moving right along with our unit in multiplication. We learned about the Identity property and the Commutative property. See if your child can remember them both! We are now trying to become fluent with our x1, x2 and x3 facts. Please practice the wrap ups at home! Write down when your child practices and I’ll award dojo points!

Please mark your calendars for Friday, December 14th. We will have an ornament making party. This will be my last Friday with the kiddos as I am not going to be in school the Thursday or Friday before Christmas break. If you could find a way to join us, we would love that! Elisa and I will send more information as we near December 14th. We will plan on a 1:00 start time.

Week 10

Another week down in grade 3! It was a bit abnormal for sure with the excitement of Halloween. It was also exciting as our new student teacher, Miss Bloom, joined us on Wednesday for her 8 week stay in our classroom! She is super sweet and kind - I invite you to pop in and say hi sometime!

Friday, November 9th is our Veterans Day celebration. If you can, we’d love to have you here to watch it! It will start at 10:00 am.

Parent/Teacher conferences are coming up the week of Thanksgiving. Conferences are Monday and Tuesday. Also, your child will have no school that week!

Book orders for November will be coming home. These are due by Wednesday, November 7th in hopes that they will be here before Thanksgiving break! :)

In math we have introduced the idea of division and how it’s related to multiplication. We are going back and forth between the two to make a firm foundation. More wrap ups will be coming home to practice those multiplication facts. Please practice at night and mark off on your child’s homework sheet for dojo points!

In writing we are all just about ready to start revising and writing final copies. Hoping to have these ready to share at conferences with you!

In reading we have been learning ways to respond to literature/stories. Your children will be responsible for one reading response per week starting next week. They are excited to start this as they know in 4th grade they’ll be responsible for a chapter book a month; we’re working our way up!

I hope you have a great weekend! As always, any questions, please feel free to reach out at any time! ~Mrs. Haulk

This week's picture books....

Week 9

Happy Friday! We are pleased to announce that our class has earned a total of 1,323 dojo points all year! We finally got a chance to watch our movie which was our reward from a few weeks ago. We also earned an extra PE class and got to name the gecko. His name is officially now, Spots. Our next reward comes at 1,500 points!

This week was exciting here in third grade as we started multiplication! We have been talking about equal groups of things, repeated addition, arrays and multiplication number sentences. We’ve talked about the relationship they all share as well. There will be a math game in this week’s homework related to this!

We had a nice visit from one of Dedham’s firefighters. He talked to us about making an escape plan with our family and testing fire alarms. Please do this!

Your children are still working hard on their narrative writing stories. This week we talked a lot about similes. They worked really hard to put similes into their stories!

Next week we will be gaining a student teacher. Her name is Sierra Bloom - she just spent the last 8 weeks in 1st grade with Mrs. Nickerson and was phenomenal from what I hear! I’m very excited to have her join us for the next 8 weeks.

Wednesday is Halloween. We are not having a party, but I do have a fun day planned and will be having a small treat for the kids. We will be doing Halloween/fall activities throughout the day, to have a little fun!

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend! Looks like it might be a cold and rainy one. ~Mrs. Haulk

Week 8

Week 8 is under our belts! It’s getting to be that time of year when sickness is starting to hit. We’ve had quite a few kids out this week. Try to get your child resting well and eating healthy! I’m cleaning anything they touch extra carefully and hoping to stop the spread of germs!

This week one was a sad one in third grade. We had a funeral….a funeral for the word “said”. It has been laid to rest and can no longer be used often in story writing. :) We came up with synonyms to replace this word and kids have been diligently writing using words other than our beloved “said”.

Our first unit in science is complete, Stormy Skies. There is a study guide coming home that has the exact questions of the test on it. Please help your child study for this test. This will be one of their first experiences with test taking in science and I will guide them through it as the test is given.

We learned about the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island this week!

Math groups are going well. Keep studying flashcards that come home to increase your child’s math fact fluency. Do you have your child’s IXL login? I’m not seeing many families practice at home and it’s such a great tool! Let me know if your child needs their username and password for use at home. :)

Week 7

Week 7 - wow! Time is just flying by! Another fun week in grade three to tell you about :)

Science: We finished up all of our lessons in our stormy skies unit. This week we became engineers! We tried to figure out how to make changes to houses we built to make them stronger in a windstorm. Check out class dojo for pictures!

Social Studies: We moved on to two different states this week to make up for missing one last week. Vermont and Massachusetts. Your children will be coming home with states/capital flash cards soon!

Writing: we are continuing with our true small moment stories. They are coming along nicely.

Spelling: your child has come home with their week 3 words. Tests are every Wednesday. Please make sure you help your child study for these tests. We do have a spelling lesson throughout the week, but they need to practice these words at home too. Repetition is key!

In math we are now operating in a math workshop fashion. I have three math groups in the room in order to individualize instruction. This seems to be working really well! If your child has come home with flashcards, please try to fit these into your nightly routine. They are important!

The book fair is next week! We will make wish lists on Monday and then you can send money with your child!

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Haulk

Week 6

Another great week in third grade! We’re busy working through all kinds of fun topics!

**Please, please, please** read these newsletters as I strive to give you important information regarding your children. It will ALWAYS tell you when something new is happening or tests are coming up. I appreciate your time to read through :)

Spelling tests started this week. Your children came home with words last Wednesday. EVERY Wednesday they will get new words. They will be located on the back side of their take home folder so they do not lose them. Tests will be on Wednesdays, unless a snow day, then on Thursday. We have four spelling groups in here so you cannot rely on calling a classmate for a list. Let me know and I can copy another if it’s lost.

Stormy Skies continued to be our theme in science this week. We looked at the climate on all the continents and figured out why some places are hot all year round.

We started some reading groups this week (more to come next week) and completed a full week of **successful** rounds of daily 5 each day! Great job third grade!

Math is coming along well, due to the varying levels in our room, as with spelling, we have different groups of kids working on different tasks. I aim to teach to all the varying levels of abilities in the room. Your child might come home saying they are doing something different than other kids and that could very well be true!

If your child came home with orange math flash cards, please study nightly. We’ve been working on strategies to learn these quickly!

As a whole group we are currently reading Wonder. The kids are loving it so far! We are getting ready to start responding in our literature journals to the first 44 pages. I can’t wait to see what they think! :)

Please encourage some of the homework being sent home - remember they can earn dojo points! :)